Information warfare workshop – Newspaper Kommersant No. 147 (7348) dated 08/15/2022
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On Saturday, the four-day forum of young political scientists “Digoria” (named after the venue of the first two forums in 2019 and 2020) ended. Its closing was accompanied by the presentation of the same name award to several participants for their projects. Digoria participants and experts signed non-disclosure agreements, but from their general comments it is clear that the focus of the forum was on the level of information and psychological work in Russia, as well as family issues, personal success and designing a successful state of the future.
The organizers of the “Digoria”, the venue of which this time was the hotel “Areal” near Moscow, are the Expert Institute for Social Research (EISI) and the Federal Agency for Youth Affairs (Rosmolodezh). Sergei Kiriyenko, First Deputy Head of the Presidential Administration, spoke at the opening of the forum; directions (“workshops and factories”, as the organizers themselves call them) are supervised by experts and technologists close to the internal political bloc of the Presidential Administration. The forum is conceived as an opportunity for young political scientists with statist attitudes to draw the attention of the authorities to their project and, possibly, to receive a job offer. The organizers severely limited the participants in the media comments – it was strictly forbidden to talk in detail about what was happening in the “workshops”. Even some heads of departments refused to communicate with the press. Some settings, however, could be understood from the open part of the forum.
So, at the final ceremony, the President of the Russian Association of Political Science (RAPS), MGIMO professor Oksana Gaman-Golutvina, told her young colleagues that “responsibility for major political events” lies not only with politicians, but also with the political class as a whole, part of which is the expert class. community: “We need our expertise to contribute to making our country stronger, to win our country in the most important battles, but not only in the important ones.” Later, speaking with journalists, Ms. Gaman-Golutvina stated that “Russia’s information and psychological work” seemed to her not “sophisticated” enough: in her opinion, the authorities, in her opinion, prefer to rely on more “heavy tools and technologies of hard power” due to “historical inertia”. “.
The topic was also supported by political consultant Yevgeny Minchenko, who was present at the forum as an expert: “In order to win in the information confrontation, you need a holistic narrative.” Mr. Minchenko and his colleagues counted 13 explanatory models of “what Russia is doing in Ukraine” in the public space, but something united is needed. “On the other side, Arestovich (adviser to the office of the President of Ukraine Oleksiy Arestovich.— “b”) in a bright image of a lover. And we have Konashenkov (official representative of the Russian Ministry of Defense, Lieutenant-General Igor Konashenkov.— “b”) in the guise of a governor,” the technologist explained, not without bitterness.
One of the “workshops” was dedicated to the “Ukrainian issue”: “We were engaged in preparing interpretations of events and phenomena that arose as a result of the Ukrainian conflict. As a result, we got an absolutely operable product that can be taken into account when solving specific issues, ”explained the foreman of the“ shop ”Pavel Danilin to the Kommersant correspondent. Another “workshop” – under the leadership of political scientist Alexander Asafov, was engaged in a “hybrid war”. “We were looking for the foundations to counteract the pressure that is now being exerted on Russia, new forms of communication and conveying information to internal and external audiences,” Eldar Yesiev said about his participation in the work of the “shop”. “This is not a story about jingoism. This is a story about truth. We tried to formulate those theses that are important for Russian society and that people who are interested in abroad could be interested in.”
Participants of the “workshop” “Proactive agenda” learned to interpret such events as six months of special operations, the beginning of the school year and regional elections – “chew them for the layman, isolate what is important to him, what is interesting,” said technologist Kirill Kotov, who became the winner of the award “Digoria” for the project “Creation and development of the archipelago of Telegram channels and chats in the Moscow region.”
However, without disregarding various forms of information warfare, the participants also remembered the humanistic function of political science. “It has economics, sociology, and research methods from other sciences. They give some resultant for solving the strategic tasks of society and the state. And what is this task? How to use power to make people live better. Remembering Aristotle, we can say that this is the science of how to make people happy, ”explained the Dean of the Faculty of Political Science of Moscow State University to the Kommersant correspondent on the sidelines of the forum. M.V. Lomonosov, Andrey Shutov, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the EISI. According to the head of the “shop” “Creation” Nikita Setov, the projects of his wards were aimed at setting people up for a “positive change in the surrounding reality.” “I worked within the State of the Future division. We thought about what Russia will be like in the future,” Sergey Belov, Doctor of Political Sciences, told reporters. “What will be the level of digitalization? How to orient the state towards the individual, and the individual towards the understanding that his success is the success of the state, and the success of the state is his personal success.” Mr. Belov, we note, became a laureate in the nomination “Political Studies” for a project on how the events of the Great Patriotic War of the last 15 years were reflected in video games, cinema, and fiction.
Political scientist Pavel Sklyanchuk represented the “Union of Fathers” at the forum and worked in the “workshop” “Family Values”: “We were developing projects for the state to strengthen the institution of the family,” he exhaustively explained. As a result, Mr. Sklyanchuk was awarded the prize for the scientific and educational project “Expert on the State Duma”. In the family “workshop”, they decided to convince young people that family and parenthood are “cool and promising” (and, as participant Polina Palizova said, harmless to personal interests if there is an appropriate infrastructure). At the same time, the participants abandoned the idea of describing in detail the parameters of the optimal family for Russia, but came to the conclusion that a comprehensive program of its support and legal consolidation of the concept of de facto marriage is necessary.
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